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COLLEGE PREP; Learning How to Learn

As they begin their first year of college, many students do not know how to study -- in no small part because they have not been challenged in secondary school, where their transcripts are embellished by grade point inflation.

A nationwide survey by the University of California at Los Angeles of over 364,000 students in 1999 found that only 31.5 percent reported spending six or more hours a week studying or doing homework in their last year of high school. That was down from 43.7 percent in 1987, when the question was first asked. And 40.2 percent said they studied fewer than three hours a week, while 17.1 percent owned up to studying less than one hour a week.

No surprise then that so many college freshmen who insist they know all the material wonder why their first battery of exams do not go so well. No surprise either that offering courses that teach ''learning strategies'' has become a cottage industry. (Professionals think the term ''study skills'' too narrow, and they have banished the stigmatizing word ''remedial'' from the lexicon of higher education.)

For the bookish, ''How to Study in College,'' by Walter Pauk, the standard text in the field, is available in its seventh edition, at more than 400 pages. For those inclined to the Internet, hundreds of institutions have established web sites with mcnuggets of advice on how to study and to advertise the services of learning strategies centers. The University of St. Thomas, in St. Paul, Minn., for example, insists that successful students commit daily MURDER (Mood, Understand, Recall, Digest, Expand, Review).

Over 1.6 million students are enrolled in learning strategies courses in two- and four-year colleges and universities, according to the National Association for Developmental Education; an additional 900,000 take advantage of tutoring and supplemental instruction, individually or in groups.

At the Learning Resource Centers at the New Brunswick, Newark and Camden, N.J., campuses of Rutgers, about 13,000 students in 34,000 visits a year are supported in a variety of settings. They include workshops with descriptions like ''Cramming for exams -- and the consequences -- in the social sciences'' and ''Identifying and understanding one's individual learning style for success in ecology courses.''

Nonetheless, it is not easy to get the students who most need assistance to use the resources available to them. Doing so, suggests Janet Snoyer, a learning strategies specialist at Cornell University, means ''breaking down the relentless high school mind-set that 'help' is designed for laggards and ill-equipped minds.'' Professionals know that although they will require those with manifestly inadequate preparation to see them and will exhort all first-year students to come in early in the semester, many students will not make an appointment until they receive a disappointing grade, and others not even then.

Sometimes, a lack of motivation, procrastination and difficulty managing time on the part of students are symptoms of emotional or personal distress. For such students, Ms. Snoyer says, ''Study skills tips barely reach the tip of the iceberg,'' and a referral to peer counseling or psychological services is appropriate.

But for many students learning how to learn is the iceberg. Fortunately, it can be chipped away at, or even melted. Professionals begin by getting students to acknowledge that being an undergraduate is a full-time job, requiring 35 or 40 hours every week including attendance in class and course-related work. Accounting for how they have spent every hour for a week or two (including snoozing and schmoozing) helps students assess their ability to set priorities, manage time and, if necessary, to create a new schedule and monitor their adherence to it.

When they hit the books, students should also consider where, how long and with whom they will study. Will proximity to a telephone, television, refrigerator, friend or potential date lead into temptation? Can extended exposure to an isolated library carrel cause narcolepsy?

A Cornell student, Paul Kangas, discovered that trying to study ''while lying in bed was a good antidote for insomnia but not the best way to memorize a list of German vocabulary words.'' But no matter how conducive to studying their accommodations may be, few undergraduates work more effectively at night than during the day.

And even fewer can concentrate for more than 90 minutes without a break. That is why, as Michael Chen, an instructor in the Center for Learning and Teaching at Cornell, puts it, ''Time between classes is prime time, not face time.''

In his book, Mr. Pauk advises undergraduates to carry pocket work so that they can read an article or memorize vocabulary for Spanish class while waiting at the doctor's office or the airport. Even if this approach seems a bit compulsive, a specific goal -- one chapter, three problem sets -- and a reward when it is reached, makes study less daunting. That reward, whether it is a coffee break or an update on the Jets game, works only if it lasts no more than half an hour.

Although students often spend their study time alone, study in groups can be extremely helpful. Carolyn Janiak, a Cornell student, said she found that she always learned more when working with others because discussions ''force me to focus on the bigger picture and argument.'' As she clarified her opinions, she said, she was able to memorize details as well.

Group sessions work best if each student has already reviewed (and if necessary memorized) all the material required for an assignment or exam; parceling out the work for vicarious learning is risky. Leslie Schettino, who teaches learning strategies courses in New York State at Tompkins Cortland Community College and Ithaca College asks members of study groups to compare lecture notes, read problems aloud, pretend they are tutors in, say, the math lab and end a meeting only when everyone understands the most important concepts. Often students discover that the best way to master material is to be forced to explain it to someone else.

But groups are not for everyone. Andrew Janis of Cornell tries to study when his roommate is out because ''complaints about organic chemistry distract me.'' He plays ''quiet jazz'' or turns his radio to ''an AM station that is all fuzz.'' As he examines notes, handouts and review sheets, he uses an online encyclopedia to help with dates and other pertinent information.

Effective note-taking is essential. It takes time for students, who are used to high school teachers who signal them with the phrase, ''Now this is really important,'' to recognize the ''architecture'' of a lecture -- the introduction and summary, inflection, emphasis and pause, the use of ''therefore,'' the digression -- and to figure out what is worth taking down. Successful students read over their notes nightly, identifying the theme and two or three crucial points. If anything is not clear, they ask the instructor for clarification as soon as possible. To review notes for the first time the night before an exam is to court disaster.

Notes on a text should be taken on a separate sheet of paper or a computer. Students might begin by skimming to identify the ''geography'' of the book -- its subheadings, graphs, maps and tables and its main lines of argument. I advise students to throw out their highlighters: those who use them are passive learners who do little more than paint their books yellow. Students who summarize a chapter in their own words, in a few paragraphs, tend to understand the material better and remember it longer. Questions might be recorded in the margin of the book, to be raised in discussions or in office hours.

Learning how to learn is not easy. It requires will and discipline, what the 19th-century English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley called ''the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.''

But just about everyone can do it. And the rewards -- emotional, intellectual and financial -- reach well beyond a grade in a college course.